Slashdot videos: Now with more Slashdot!

View

Discuss

Share

We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

An anonymous reader writes "Yesterday, Russia's Foreign Minister declared that Moscow would not sell any new surface-to-air missiles to Syria, although there is a catch. He said old contracts are being honored. Could old contracts just be code for an already signed, but undisclosed deal for the S-300? Lavarov certainly left the door open: '...when questioned in particular about the S-300, his reply was not clear if the "earlier contracts" were for the S-300 or something else.' With Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu going to the Black Sea town of Sochi early next week for talks with President Vladimir Putin, it seems they may have something to talk about."

Hey, much love on my part for modern weapons tech, but on Slashdot this is clutter.

Any techies who are interested know how to keep track of such events.

Anyone interested also knows any missile systems sold to Syria can be countered by standoff weapons launched from outside Syrian airspace in most cases. Extended range JDAMs and Spice kits mean expensive anti-aircraft missiles would have to be used against small, relatively inexpensive, "smart bombs".

Those can also be used to destroy Syrian aircraft in their shelters as well as SAM sites.

This is on Slashdot because it is profitable for them to post troll stories. You might notice that the stories that get the most replies have either a political, religious, or the current all-time favorite: the patent-related slant to whip the unsuspecting into a reading/posting frenzy generating ad revenue.

Contrast the FUD stories with the few articles posted about hard science, and sadly they typically get about 5% of the replies as say an Apple/MS/Samsung/Google patent troll-the-readership type story.

You are right, there are sellers who make a lot of money selling arms from guys that want to buy them. What is significant is not the suppliers of arms. They don't create demand (as was your assertion), they merely satisfy it. The cause of the conflict is not the suppliers, it is the Sunni-Shia civil war that is playing out in the Middle East. No, the mainstream media doesn't cast their news reports in those terms, but that is part of what is going on with the "Arab Spring". The other part is the restorat

Dude, the S-300 is the "supercomputer" of the SAM world. The US has the Patriot and the USSR/Russia as the S-300/S-400 system. Some people are interested in this and it is appropriate for Slashdot. If you don't like it, then skip the fscking article. Despite what your mommy still tells you, the world does not revolve around *you*.

I don't know if you noticed the byline of the site, in case you had trouble finding it the byline is "News for Nerds". It may be about information technology, but not exclusively so. News about missiles is news for nerds. You may not like it, but as I said, the World does not revolve around you (well, it does from your own perspective, but not from any of the other twenty million site visitors). So you may not think it is relevant, but perhaps that is because you are not one of us. Time to find some tar and

I may have read to much H.P. Lovecraft and Charlie Stross, but when I first read the headline, my initial reading was that Russia would be given shoggoths to Syria. That would have been interesting. It will be interesting to see if any deal does go through, and the fact that Syria wants these is interesting given that the rebels have had little access to aircraft. Syria probably wants it to help prevent intervention in the ongoing civil war.

Might this not be an opportune time for the US to stop living up to its image overseas as a big, blundering, international bully and just let the locals fend for themselves?

With a millions of Islamic loonies on their doorstep, and their own disasters in Afghanistan and Chechnya to remind them, one would think that the Russians would have better sense than to keep exacerbating and encouraging Middle-Eastern instability.

No, I suppose both powers' energy and defense industries are more important than anybody else's self-determination.

The problem is that if we don't get involved people will complain about how we're standing by while people are slaughtered. Of course if we DO get involved people (many of them the SAME people) will flip out if a single civilian dies by the hands of our soldiers and start screaming about how our soldiers are murderers. It's a no-win situation, but on the whole the balance clearly favors letting them kill each other.

I for one would like to see us completely avoid getting involved except for working (both

Russia doesn't have a problems with Shia Islamic loonies on their doorstep. It has a good relationship with Iran, trade and otherwise. It has an okay relationship with Azerbaijan, the other Shiite country in the region (though that one is firmly in the Turkish sphere of influence). Its problems with militant Islam are mainly with Wahhabi/Salafi extremist forms of it, and those are coming from countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Coincidentally, they happen to be exactly the countries which Iran is heav

Might this not be an opportune time for the US to stop living up to its image overseas as a big, blundering, international bully and just let the locals fend for themselves?

Won't work. Look at history, in 1914 the US stayed neutral in World War I until someone came out and sank on of their ships. The World didn;t seek war with Hitler, but it came to them. In World War II the US was officially neutral (although did a lot of business in arms) until the Japanese came and pounded Pearl Harbour. The US didn't seek the war in Korea, the North Koreans did. The US didn't seek war in Vietnam, the Communist Vietnamese did. Th World didn't seek war with the Warsaw Pact, but the conflict

Well, the military often understands what the public does not. Some of the public do understand why some wars need to be fought. The rest of the people either don't know, don't care or have a wrong understanding. These sheep don't matter in the decision making process.

Just remember, this isn't a video game.

That's true. Life should not be thrown away. However, it is also "not a video game" in the sense that there really are evil people who really do want to kill you just because you don't follow their crazy ideology (eg. Islam). The last Pew su

How have the Jews collaborated with Wahabbi terrorism? The US collaborates and arms Wahabbis but Israel does not. Israel was careful to bomb sites that are useful to Hezbollah (who are Shia, not Sunni Wahabbis). So, it has to be said that your post is not only stupidly racist, it is also ignorantly false. No wonder you posted as an AC - I'd be ashamed of putting such falsehoods on the Web too.

Syria must be seriously broke by now. In comparison to Syria, Israel's economy is doing fantastically well. I think the only payment Syria could make would be to let the Russians have military bases on Syrian soil, and expand Russian naval presence on the Mediterranean.

On Deep Background:

A Russian ship is currently visiting Israel, which has many ex-Russian citizens.

Russia has also received title to a large tract of land in downtown Jerusalem, purchased in previous centuries by the Russian Orthodox Church

Do you think it is a better idea for America to confront jihadis on its own soil? Now you can argue whether it is moral or not, but it is far more sensible to fight them in Afghanistan and Iraq than on the streets of New York (although Boston has shown us it can happen; most people are not aware of the dozens of similar cases foiled by the US security services but with the same jihadi goals, these goals are outlined in the 109 terror verses of the Qur'an http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/quran/023-violenc [thereligionofpeace.com]

Propping up the House of Saud and their twisted Wahabbism seemed like a great plan at the time, but blowback's a real bitch ain't it?

Propping up countless dictators which inevitably leads to opposition from extreme religious groups, also not the best idea. If someone managed to do the same to the US, you better believe it would be the batshittiest of the batshit crazy fundies leading the charge, and the rest of the world would tsk tsk about you crazy fu

Decisions have consequences, even if decision makers sometimes go into denial. In the weekend edition of the Herald, Debra Jopson provided case studies of the 21 men who have been convicted of terrorism-related charg

You misunderstand the problem. The ultimate goal of Al Qaida is to reestablish the Islamic Caliphate government that was dissolved in 1923 (after the fall of the Ottoman empire in World War 1) and extend Muslim rule and religion over the entire earth. Their goal is not connected with the United States and the West. However, the United States and the West will not bow to this plan, so they are an enemy to be attacked. Since you misunderstand the problem, you won't have a useful solution.

Despite public claims on behalf of the White House that no weapons are being sent to the rebels, reports that the CIA has been doing precisely that have been circulating for months, including a recent story about CIA spies smuggling 14 stinger missiles into Syria so rebels could defend themselves with ground to air technology.

The New York Times admitted in a June 21 report that the CIA was "steering" arms to Syrian rebels from the Turkish border, but claimed the weapons were paid for by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The New York Times' decision to alter the wording of the article is another example of how NATO-aligned media outlets are concerned about overemphasizing western support for the rebels given their involvement in terrorist attacks and other acts of brutality.

I'd recommend against adding racism to your obvious ignorance, however. Even though that feeling is dependent on the possibility that you have a sense of human dignity, which is certainly slim.

actually with the way things are going islam is going to have a full on civil war between shite, and sunni muslims. Christianity did it is generally called the protestant reformation or european religious wars. and it was entirely ugly. Islam is going to have to do something similar in order to move forward. I would say give peace a chance but that is exactly what they do not want. they want to be right.

Just like a shield is a defensive device, it is meant to be use together with an offensive one.An advanced surface-to-air missile system can be used to protect a military nuclear facility, just like the one Syria had until it was taken out by Israel [wikipedia.org]. Just think about what have happened would happen if Syria had continue the development of nuclear weapons at the time, and they fall under the wrong hands, which is quite possible given the current situation.

Just think about what would happen if you did not believe the Jewish lies and propaganda.

Propaganda isn't necessarily false. Similarly, one could wonder how bad things could get if Israeli nukes got into the wrong hands due to a similar civil war. The problem with your complaint is that Syria is the country with the civil war not Israel.

Apartheid? against who? you are aware that there are 1 million Arab Israelis, including Muslims, yeah? These Palestinian Arabs get more rights in Israel than they do in the Palestinian Territory, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, or Gaza (hint: apart from Gaza I've been to all these places, so I *know* you are completely full of sh!t). How about you stop spreading the provably false propaganda. As soon as someone mentions apartheid in the context if Israel it simply proves: a) they don't know what South African a

Actually, the most likely use would be for Hezbollah to use their tens of thousands of Iranian supplied ballistic missiles and rockets to start a war that commits the war crime of targetting Israeli citizens exclusively. That's what the S-300 battery will be used for.

And those old Iranian rockets Hezbolla has are going to fit in the device in exactly what way?For some reason you've missed the fucking obvious that there is a war going on and weapons are getting used in that war. Take the 1/10 of a second to think about what's happening with a new weapon instead of trying to fit it into the unrelated barrow you are trying to push.

No, I just used the world old to be accurate (which is more than those rockets are - but you still die if they land where you are). They are rockets from Iran made several years ago - thus "old Iranian rockets", and unlikely to work with anything new from Russia.I'm not "anti-scientist" just because someone like you that just happens to work in one field pretends that something in another that has fuck all to do with science is real. It appears that you must have picked up your "kill all Muslims" shit, th

Your earlier posts made it very clear and now you think readers are so stupid that they will think Syria is buying stuff to give away in the middle of a very bloody and senseless no holds barred civil war instead of fighting with it? You are deliberately skewing things to push your own unrelated barrow. This "kill all Muslims" shit is exactly the sort of divide Bin Laden was pushing for (before he died - for the benefit of the poor reasoning skills of another poster here).Also now the "missing WMD" - WTF?

Your earlier posts made it very clear and now you think readers are so stupid that they will think Syria is buying stuff to give away in the middle of a very bloody and senseless no holds barred civil war instead of fighting with it?.... Nobody throws away their ace in the middle of a war that means their certain execution even if they make it out the other end alive as losers.

Have you been living in a cave? The Israeli Air Force destroy a Russian-built, Iranian paid for and Syrian-supplied SA-17 Buk medium range surface-to-air missile complex that was being stored in Syria and transferred to Hezbollah. They destroyed it on the Lebanese border before it could cross. Everyone who has been following the facts of the war knows this. Why don't you?

You are deliberately skewing things to push your own unrelated barrow. This "kill all Muslims" shit is exactly the sort of divide Bin Laden was pushing for (before he died - for the benefit of the poor reasoning skills of another poster here).
Also now the "missing WMD" - WTF? Moon landing hoax next?

You keep putting up this strawman despite me explicitly and repeatedly saying that I wish no harm to come to non-jihadi Muslims. The othe

Your nazi shit about putting all Muslims in camps so they can be watched to find that minority of criminals comes to mind. What is most amusing is when you called me racist when I quoted your own terrible words right back at you with only the name of the group to be picked on changed, and that was right after some text saying that was purely to illustrate how disgusting the things you are calling for are - and there is no way you could possibly be so

Your nazi shit about putting all Muslims in camps so they can be watched to find that minority of criminals comes to mind.

I have never, ever said that. You are slandering me with made up shit.

What is most amusing is when you called me racist when I quoted your own terrible words right back at you with only the name of the group to be picked on changed, and that was right after some text saying that was purely to illustrate how disgusting the things you are calling for are - and there is no way you could possibly be so stupid as to miss that yet you pretend to be since it was more convenient to so so. Calling me racist for throwing your own words back at you? Clearly you have no shame and anything goes since you've gone into full wartime propaganda mode. If you're going to shove such white supremacy bullshit in my face I'm not going to keep quiet and let you corrupt the gullible here with your slime.

The funny thing is that the quote you posted was from someone else, not me. But you are so retarded you didn't even notice you had made this mistake.

So, can you answer my question about the missiles? since you made three false statements about them.

No that quoted hate text was from you from the post directly above it so that's an especially stupid lie.Also the missile question is mindless since they come from very different sources and are of very different ages - incompatibility you idiot - it's not like loading a.303 cartridge into a gun of the same size. Unless you mean the other ridiculous thing with no range, payload size, type of missile and a few other unknowns that you were bluffing with since neither of us have a clue what a "single nuclear

No that quoted hate text was from you from the post directly above it so that's an especially stupid lie.

No you fool, I have never ever advocated putting Muslims in camps. It is a disgusting and repulsive idea. It is clear either you are incompetent and misattributing (very likely) or you are in the business of fabricating (a typical tactic of low-intelligence leftists, which all evidence points you to being). Stop with the false slander. If we were in the same country you would be slapped with a lawsuit because of your falsehoods - yes, I *know* I have never advocated putting Muslims in camps. So stop being

But yes, we need to defend our *existing* laws/Constitutions and values; kinetic action is only needed for those no laws can't reach [eg. the increasing incidents of violent immigrants who refuse to recognize the judiciary and sovereignty of the countries they move to].

Are you sure you didn't mistake me replying to someone else's text? I have no plans for a progrom - so stop the slander. And yes, people are friending me and replying all the time - people can see you trying to excuse the weapons that Hezbollah and Iran intend to use in their *stated* genocidal plans. Just give up, you have failed (although you can't seem to grok that no matter how many facts I present to you).

Lol. Another fail! I'm partially of native minority race of a non-US country. It's so funny to watch you. You have *zero* facts, and the statements you make are trivially debunked (as I have done). So, lacking anything else you make show your true colors as an anti-white racist. Funny thing is, I'm part native. What a loser you are. Like I said, you clearly have below average IQ. If only you would understand this you might listen long enough to learn some facts from people who know (instead of the insane fa

Given your background you should know better than to fall for such propaganda then. Those bastards pushing it don't think much of you and don't even think much about their fellow citizens of Israel with the same ethnicity and faith, they just use this divisive "kill all Muslims" bullshit to stir up the sort of populist blame of the "other" that the founders of Israel escaped from. As their political power in Israel has waned they've just got more noisy. Ignore them. They are full of nothing but hate and

Obviously not. Your earlier post with your "solution" that looked horribly familiar shows the problem lies with you and not the messenger that keeps on telling you to think about what you have written and to warn off children before you corrupt them. Since this has all been about your lies you've got nothing but insults thrown in the dark and know nothing at all about me. Outline your "solution" to anyone over 70 and you will see recognition in their eyes of the slime you are turning into.

interesting, those rockets you did see mostly do nothing as they are unguided. most of Hezbollah's rockets are primitive. But these S-300 are a sealed and canned system, can't just break into them to arm them with something else, and change their characteristics from SAM to surface-to-surface. They *could* back up an attack with newer weapons, or be used to attack civilian aircraft by surprise. Israel is getting more anxious about the converging trends of more sophisticated missiles, larger volumes of u

What do you think Hezbollah are going to do under an umbrella of the most advanced missile family the made by the Soviets... er, Tsar Putin's Imperial fiefdom... er, Russia ? (note: the S-400 is just an improved S-400).

That's right mostincompetent, they are going to launch the tens of thousands of ballistic missiles and rockets on Israeli *citizens*, aggressively initiating yet another war whose modus operandi is *war crime* and whose sole intent is *war crime*. Don't be such a doofus.

let's be realistic here. the s-300 are defensive Surface to Air missiles. Even if we accept that somehow assad would give them to hezbollah, i highly doubt that hezbollah ( or assad ) have the scientific / technological know-how to transform them to surface-to-surface missiles.

I think you have the wrong end of the stick. The point of the S-300 surface-to-air missiles is to enable Hezbollah to act with much greater impunity from air attack when they launch the 50000 surface-to-surface *ballistic missiles* they have.

At the moment Hezbollah are deterred from launching the missiles at Israeli population centers because they know they would get a pounding from the Israeli Air Force as they did in 2006 (which is why Hezbollah have not attacked since).

With the top-of-the-range S-300 Hezbollah can both launch missile attacks and commit terrorism with less risk of the IDF responding (eg. for terrorist/jihadi attacks consider the the Hezbollah bombing of civilians in Burgas, Bulgaria; and all the other attacks they have carried out around the world, eg. Georgia, India, Cyprus [foiled], Thailand [where the attackers were caught, so there is no question what was going in], several times in Buenos Aires Argentina; and Europe has been warned it can be attacked anywhere at any time by Hezbollah).

However, even surface-to-air missiles can be dangerous in a surface-to-surface role. The US Navy has its fire-control electronics so that it can use its SAMs in an anti-ship role (eg. for causing sailor casualties and destroy delicate electronics). It would be wasteful of an S-300, but still possible to do some harm.

Actually, it was Amal who did most of the fighting. Hezbollah was a late player who were funded by the imperial theocracy of Iran, but took all the glory. ps. Lebanon was attacked by Israel because the PLO had moved from Tunis to Jordan (where they were kicked out after trying to overthrow the Jordanian monarchy in "Black September") then moved to Beirut and set up base there - where they conducted a global campaign of terrorism (eg. the Munich massacre, numerous hijacks etc). The Israelis came in to Leban

Unless you live in Russia or Syria, it's not, and shouldn't be, your problem.

Unfortunately problems in other parts of the world can become large and really hurt if you just ignore them. Kind of like when your neighbor is running a meth lab. If you ignore it, you're going to have problems.

I'm not saying we should do anything about Syria right now (although we have a lot of options besides attacking/invading), but we need to watch carefully and make sure things don't happen that will bite us later.

Unless you live in Russia or Syria, it's not, and shouldn't be, your problem.

And if a large majority of Syrian citizens are against further arming Assad's regime? Whose problem does it become? If they ask or beg for the UN to impose a no-fly zone [npr.org] to counteract the Assad regime's airstrikes, whose problem does it become, these new(er) anti-aircraft missiles?

Does it change the equation if not stopping the Syrian conflict will inevitably draw Lebanon, Israel and probably Iran, Turkey and the United States into a wider and messier conflict?

Good point, and especially as Assad sees fewer options left to him, he may see more and more incentive in provoking neighboring powers to create the biggest mess possible. Thankfully he hasn't shot down a Turkish plane in the past few months, but it has seemed at times that he wants to provoke outsiders as an excuse to solidify his base.

The problem with arming the Syrian rebels is that it was already tried and US and Qatari-bought weapons quickly passed through the secular SLA to the Al Qaeda units called "Al Nusra". The rebels should not be supplied with arms. Note: It is likely that the Obama Administration did not provide military assistance to the Ambassador and SEALs in in Benghazi, which got them killed after 8 hours of assaults, in order to hide the gun running that did get to Al Qaeda; either that or it was a botched attempt to s

It's interesting that you bring up Yugoslavia. When Western troops got involved, they were generally pretty happy to let Croats and Bosniaks duke it out on Serbs, but for some reason not the other way around. So the siege of Sarajevo was treated as a war crime, but Operation Maslenica and Operation Storm were pretty much ignored. Ditto Kosovo, where NATO intervened on behalf of KLA (and US even went so far as to remove them from the list of terrorist organizations for the duration - usually it goes the other way, "freedom fighters" becoming "terrorists" later, this was a rare case of the other way around), but KFOR did nothing when de-facto independent after the war Kosovar communities started driving the few remaining Serbs out, burning down Orthodox churches etc.

So if Yugoslavia is your example of a successful humanitarian intervention, I very much hope that nothing of a kind takes place in Syria.

Does it really matter whether the territories were "unlawfully occupied" or not? Serbs were claiming that Bosnia is similarly "unlawfully occupied" by Bosniaks and Croats. And if you know anything about the history of this region, you'll soon realize that everyone has a claim on anything there, and Serbs had as much of a claim on Krajina as Bosniaks did on Bosnia, or Albanians on Kosovo: it's down to the simple fact that they have been the ethnic majority there for many decades, and the other ethnicity whic

I am not doing apologetics. My point is not to dispute the causes of the war, but rather the conduct of Western powers intervening into it, ostensibly to prevent war crimes - which in practice they did very selectively (and, at least in Kosovo, added a few of their own). In my opinion, that removes any moral high ground they would have had otherwise.

By the way, I wonder if you realize that your argument right now is sounding a lot like Soviet apologetics for all the murders and rapes on occupied German terr

You keep harping about the origin of the conflict as if it somehow excuses the war crimes and ethnic cleansing if "they started first".

Your claims of no war crimes during Storm are bullshit [wikipedia.org]. And the reason why Serbs were fleeing the area in advance was not because they were all murderous criminals who partook in genocide of Croats before. It was because they knew full well what Croatian forces did to Serb civilian populations in captured areas during Bosnian War.

You have no fucking idea what was going on here. None whatsoever. But you are so quick to call 1995 names and say absolutely nothing about 1990-1995.

I'm talking about 1995 because that was the part that was glanced over by the same Western authorities who cracked down on what preceded it. You don't need to tell people about Srebrenica, because it was publicized on every corner. But ask them to name a couple of Bosniak or Croat war criminals, and they go "huh".

Simply put, this conversation was not intended as Serbs vs Croats (or vs wherever), despite you clearly trying to move it into that direction. That's not the fucking point. Get over it.

People fled because they were terrorist criminals who spent the last four years plundering and destroying the homes and possessions of over three quarter of a million people, not to say anything about mass murders and rapes

It's very convenient, indeed, when you label an entire ethnicity as "terrorists", and then go on to say that therefore there was no ethnic cleansing. After all, they were just terrorists, right? Or were only the ones that actually died in the invasion terrorists? You know, like Americans handle those things in AfPak - if you're a victim of a drone strike and you're male, then you must have been a terrorist, because only terrorists get killed by drones.

I have repeatedly mentioned Srebrenica in my earlier posts in this thread, and I have also mentioned Sarajevo. You are being willfully blind to that, though, because you clearly have an ax to grind here.

I know that things aren't "as simple as that". What I know is that Yugoslavian wars were a bloody mess that started largely due to Serbian nationalism and irredentism, but which have seen the revival of extreme ethnonationalist ideologies on all sides of that conflict (except possibly for Slovenia), and war

Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood are aligned. Turkey would very very much like for the US to intervene on the Turkish side (Turkey, the African Muslim Brotherhood nations like Egypt Libya etc, and the Syrian Al Qaeda called "Al Nusra"). So there is a possibility that this could be a "false flag" operation - in the same way that Al Nusra used chemical weapons on its own civilians in the last fortnight and accused Assad of doing this (hoping the US would leap in an help Al Qeada out, again).

The Muslim Brotherhood is very very smart/cunning. After seeing NATO intervene on the side of the Bosian Muslims and Albanian Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo respectively the MB realised it could manipulate the US into doing its dirty work. That is exactly what is happening, and the US goes along with this because it believes the MB is a counter to Al Qaeda. Of course, the Muslim Brotherhood is merely the "good cop" role while Al Qaeda plays "bad cop"- their methods differ (non-violence versus violence) but their goals are completely aligned: all nations subjected to the Muslim political order under Sharia.

The US should let Assad crush the rebels (yes, this is bad, because Iran is involved, but it is far far better than letting the Muslim Brotherhood get another country for their restored Caliphate plan).

The recent bomb attack in Turkey near the Syrian border had as its target civilians who belong to the same group as Syrians government. They are ANTI the syrian rebels who are now in their town.

There is no such thing as a "Muslim", while to the outside world Islam tends to be presented as one faith (against the world), internally their are many divisions some of which are based on simply which region you are from. And those regions have little to do with todays borders.

Only the British ever really managed to contain it with their moto of: 'Don't fight or we will kill you'. Remove the "evil" dictator who is supressing the groups and you soon find yourself with out of control groups willing to spend the next 1000 years fighting each other of patches of sand.

Think about why this is. Look at the Qur'an and hadiths. Mohammed had Muslims not under his direct control killed (burned them alive in the unauthorized mosque they built without his permission, he discovered it when they asked him to come and bless it). This set the example for all Muslims that sectarian warfare is not only ok, it is mandatory to fight against other apostates, which are other Muslims. That's why when people say if Islam ruled the world there would be peace. That is false, besides the violent jihad against non-Muslims, and the severe oppression of Muslims, there would also be endless sectarian warfare. This shows up in the bloody statistics of Muslims killed every day by Muslims of another sect and in the fighting of Sunni vs Shia in Syria:http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/ [thereligionofpeace.com]

Most of the West never knows or cares about the colossal amount of violence that wracks all of the Muslim World. It is the political ideology of *Islam* that is driving this constant violence. Islam is not a religion of peace as the ignorant or taqiyya-practicing liars tell you. Islam is an evil totalitarian ideology of oppression, exploitation and violence. It is against all the human rights we hold dear. Don't let the liars fool you. Oppose Islamicization of the West.

In 1982 the Syrian government killed 30,000 – 40,000 of its own citizens. Assad leveled an entire city with an air bombardment followed by artillery and tank fire. Why? They were anti Baath party, and apparently in 1982 in Syria that was a death sentence

CAUTION: Graphic descriptions of atrocities in the article

You can take that caution seriously if you are of delicate constitution. The SS didn't really have anything on the Syrian army.

Hama makes an interesting counterpoint to the frequent claims of massacre or genocide made against Israel by various Arab groups and their allies. Those claims generally prove to be false, misleading, or exaggerated, once exposed to scrutiny.

Hama makes an interesting counterpoint to the frequent claims of massacre or genocide made against Israel by various Arab groups and their allies.

Ah, but the Islamists and their Leftist allies always accuse their opponents of things they want to do themselves. Now you know that is one of their tactics you will be able to spot it when it occurs. It is quite common once you have your antenna up and active (and this is after confirmation bias has been filtered out).

Assad, Hussien,Murbak, etc (Syria, Iraq, Egypt) where the only middle east countries where christians could actually live peacefully with muslims. It was precisely because they were violent oppressive regimes that they were able to tone down the violence between sunni and shite muslims to allow even basic freedoms for other religions.

Without those brutal dictators, those countries are becoming unlivable for non muslim's first, and then for the local non-dominate version of islam(s

"Government slaughter of civilians should be everyone's problem."
So we get involved.

If we ship weapons over to the rebels then atrocities will be committed with them at some point and we will be painted as the bad guys (probably by you).If we send troops over we'll get another Vietnam where we spend billions (trillions?) and end up with lots of dead Americans, lots of mistakes that get made by our troops that get international attention and we end up being painted as the bad guys (probably by you).If we

What do you suggest — that the United States MIC commit to another "humanitarian" invasion and occupation in order to "liberate" a sovereign nation engaged in a civil war? I suppose you could say we're good at it, [williamblum.org] as long "good" means a good number of dead foreigners who weren't bothering us, and a good chunk of taxpayers' dollars in the pockets of Halliburton, Blackwater/Xe/Academi/whatever-the-fuck they're calling themselves these days, etc.

Usually the Israelis are pretty defiant but they have been unusually spooked

Unusual? How quickly we forget the cold war. Nations are standing back and watching Syria because in my youth Syria was to the east what Israel was to the west, nobody wants to be seen to be militarily supporting one side or the other since that risks dragging everyone into a much broader conflict. Both sides of the old "east/west"political divide want to contain the fighting within the borders of Syria much more than they want to their "dog" to win. This is why Israeli strikes on Syria and arms supplies to either side in Syria spook everyone.

UN voting patterns on subjects concerning Syria and Israel still more or less follows the patterns established during the cold war. Saddam was politically simple by comparison, he was our loose cannon and the old "red team" of nations didn't mind us taking him out, Gadaffi was dead the minute the revolt erupted, he had no powerful friends left, much less an influential voting block in the UN watching his back.

UN voting patterns on subjects concerning Syria and Israel still more or less follows the patterns established during the cold war.

It does this because the Red-Green Alliance of the Cold War is still active. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation has joined with 'Non-Aligned States' to form a voting bloc that supports either Islamist or ex-communist causes. Because it is one-vote-per-country democracy in the UN (that is, mob rule), this system invented in the Cold War still works to the advantage of Islamists and communists - that is why you see the voting patterns you do, even two decades after the collapse of the Soviet socialist sy

Maybe they run MSVS (Modulnaya Sistema Vooruzhennyh Sil - Modular Armed Forces System). I hadn't tried it but it is somewhere in my collection. Full Disclosure and Disclaimer: It was on rutracker.org so I do not disclose any Russian state secrets not disclosed earlier.